This specification provides guidelines for designing web content authoring
tools that are both (1) more accessible to authors with disabilities and (2) designed to enable,
support, and promote the production of more accessible web content by all authors.

The "Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0" (ATAG 2.0)
is part of a series of accessibility guidelines published by the
W3CWeb
Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

Editor's Draft of ATAG 2.0

This document is the internal working draft used by the AUWG and is updated continuously and without notice. This document has no formal standing within W3C. Please consult the group's home page and the W3C technical reports index for information about the latest publications by this group.

May be Superseded

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.

Web Accessibility Initiative

No Endorsement

Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.

This is a Working Draft of the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) version
2.0. This document includes recommendations for assisting authoring tool developers to make their authoring tools more accessible to people with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, motor difficulties, speech difficulties, and others.

Accessibility, from an authoring tool perspective, includes addressing the needs of two overlapping user groups with disabilities:

It is important to note that, while the requirements for meeting these two sets of user needs are separated for clarity within the guidelines, the accelerating trend toward user-produced content means that, in reality, they are deeply inter-connected. For example, when a user participates in an online forum, they frequently author content that is then incorporated with other content authored by other users. Accessibility problems in either the authoring user interface or the content produced by the other forum users would reduce the overall accessibility of the forum.

ATAG 2.0 Layers of Guidance

The individuals and organizations that may use ATAG 2.0 vary widely and include authoring tool developers, authoring tool users (authors), authoring tool purchasers, and policy makers. In order to meet the varying needs of this audience, several layers of guidance are provided:

Principles: Under each part are several high-level principles that organize the guidelines.

Guidelines: Under the principles are guidelines. The guidelines provide the basic goals that authoring tool developers should work toward in order to make authoring tools more accessible to both authors and end
users of web content with different disabilities. The guidelines are not testable, but provide the framework and overall objectives to help authoring tool developers understand the success criteria. Each guideline includes a brief rationale for why the guideline was included.

Success Criteria: For each guideline, testable success criteria are provided to allow ATAG 2.0 to be used where requirements and conformance testing are necessary, such as in design specification, purchasing, regulation, and contractual agreements. In order to meet the needs of different groups and different situations, multiple levels of full and partial conformance are defined (see Levels of Conformance).

Implementing ATAG 2.0 document: The Implementing ATAG 2.0 document provides additional non-normative information for each success criterion, including a description of the intent of the success criterion, examples and links to related resources.

Integration of Accessibility Features

When implementing ATAG 2.0, authoring tool developers should carefully integrate features that support more accessible authoring into the same "look-and-feel" as other features of the authoring tool. Close integration has the potential to:

Developer control: The Part A success criteria only apply to the authoring tool user interface as it is provided by the developer. They do not apply to any subsequent modifications by parties other than the authoring tool developer (e.g., user modifications of default settings, third-party plug-ins).

Accessibility of features provided to meet Part A: The Part
A success criteria apply to the entire authoring tool user interface, including any features added to meet the success criteria in Part A (e.g., documentation, search functions). The only exemption is for preview features,
as long as they meet the relevant success criteria in Guideline A.3.7. Previews are treated differently than editing-views because all authors, including those with disabilities, benefit when preview features accurately reflect the functionality of user
agents that are actually in use by end users.

Unrecognizable content: When success criteria require authoring tools to treat web content according to semantic criteria, the success criteria do not apply when these semantics are missing (e.g., text that describes an image is only considered to be a text alternative when this role is encoded within markup).

PRINCIPLE A.3: Editing-views must be operable

Rationale: Some authors with
limited mobility or visual disabilities are not able to use a mouse and instead require keyboard interface access to all of the functionality of the authoring tool.

A.3.1.1 Keyboard Access (Minimum):

All functionality of the authoring tool is operable through a keyboard interface without requiring specific timings for individual keystrokes, except where the underlying function requires input that depends on the path of the user's movement and not just the endpoints. (Level A)

Note 1: Keyboard interfaces are programmatic services provided by many platforms that allow operation in a device independent manner. This success criterion does not imply the presence of a hardware keyboard.

Note 2: The path exception relates to the underlying function, not the input technique. For example, if using handwriting to enter text, the input technique (handwriting) requires path-dependent input, but the underlying function (text input) does not. The path exception encompasses other input variables that are continuously sampled from pointing devices, including pressure, speed, and angle.

Note 3: This success criterion does not forbid and should not discourage other input methods (e.g., mouse, touch) in addition to keyboard operation.

A.3.1.2 No Keyboard Traps:

If keyboard focus can be moved to a component using a keyboard interface, then focus can be moved away from that component using only a keyboard interface, and, if it requires more than unmodified arrow or tab keys or other standard exit methods, authors are advised of the method for moving focus away. (Level A)

Rationale: Some authors who have difficulty typing, operating the mouse, or processing information can be prevented from using systems with short time limits or that require fast reaction speeds, such as clicking on a moving target.

A.3.2.1 Auto-Save (Minimum):

If the authoring tool includes authoring session time limits, then the authoring tool can be set to automatically save web content edits made using the authoring tool before the session time limits are reached. (Level A)

A.3.2.2 Timing Adjustable:

If a time limit is set by the authoring tool, then at least one of the following is true: (Level A)

(a) Turn Off:Authors are allowed to turn off the time limit before encountering it; or

(b) Adjust: Authors are allowed to adjust the time limit before encountering it over a wide range that is at least ten times the length of the default setting; or

(c) Extend: Authors are warned before time expires and given at least 20 seconds to extend the time limit with a simple action (e.g., "press the space bar"), and authors are allowed to extend the time limit at least ten times; or

(d) Real-time Exception: The time limit is a required part of a real-time event (e.g., a collaborative authoring system), and no alternative to the time limit is possible; or

(e) Essential Exception: The time limit is essential and extending it would invalidate the activity; or

A.3.4.2 Navigate by Programmatic Relationships:

Note: Depending on the web content technology and the nature of the authoring tool, relationships may include, but are not limited to, element nesting, headings, labeling, programmatic definitions, and ID relationships.

Rationale: Some authors need to set their own display settings in a way that differs from the presentation that they want to define for the publishedweb content. Providing the ability to save and reload sets of keyboard and display preference settings benefits authors who have needs that differ over time (e.g., due to fatigue).

PART B: Support the production of accessible content

Part B Conformance Applicability Notes:

Developer control: The Part B success criteria only apply to the authoring tool as it is provided by the developer. This does not include subsequent modifications by parties other than the authoring tool developer (e.g., third-party plug-ins, user-defined templates, user modifications of default settings).

Authoring systems: As per the ATAG 2.0 definition of authoring tool, several software tools (identified in any conformance claim) can be used in conjunction to meet the requirements of Part B (e.g., an authoring tool could make use of a third-party software accessibility checking tool).

Accessibility of features provided to meet Part B: The Part
A success criteria apply to the entire authoring tool user interface, including any features that must be present to meet the success criteria in Part B (e.g., checking tools, repair tools, tutorials, documentation).

Multiple authoring roles: Some authoring tools include multiple author roles, each with different views and content editing permissions (e.g., a content management system may separate the roles of designers, content authors, and quality assurers). In these cases, the Part B success criteria apply to the authoring tool as a whole, not to the view provided to any particular authoring role. Accessible content support features should be made available to any authoring role where it would be useful.

Unrecognizable content: When success criteria require authoring tools to treat web content according to semantic criteria, the success criteria do not apply when these semantics are missing (e.g., text that describes an image is only considered to be a text alternative when this role is encoded within markup).

B.1.2.1 Restructuring and Recoding Transformations (WCAG):

If the authoring tool provides restructuring transformations or re-coding transformations, and if equivalent mechanisms exist in the web content technology of the output, then at least one of the following is true: (Level A to meet WCAG 2.0 Level A success criteria; Level AA to meet WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA success criteria; Level AAA to meet all WCAG 2.0 success criteria)

B.1.2.2 Copy-Paste Inside Authoring Tool (WCAG):

If the authoring tool supports copy and paste of structured content, then any accessibility information (WCAG) in the copied content is preserved when the authoring tool is both the source and destination of the copy-paste. (Level A to meet WCAG 2.0 Level A success criteria; Level AA to meet WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA success criteria; Level AAA to meet all WCAG 2.0 success criteria)

B.2.1.1 Accessible Content Possible (WCAG):

If the authoring tool places restrictions on the web content that authors can specify, then those restrictions do not prevent WCAG 2.0 success criteria from being met. (Level A to meet WCAG 2.0 Level A success criteria; Level AA to meet WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA success criteria; Level AAA to meet all WCAG 2.0 success criteria)

(a) Author Control:Authors have the opportunity to accept, modify, or reject the suggested text alternatives prior to insertion; and

(b) Relevant Sources: The suggested text alternatives are only derived from sources designed to fulfill the same purpose (e.g., suggesting the value of an image's "description" metadata field as a long description).

B.2.5.1 Pre-Authored Content Selection Mechanism:

If authors are provided with a selection mechanism for pre-authored content other than templates (e.g., clip art gallery, widget repository, design themes), then both of the following are true: (Level AA)

(a) Indicate: The selection mechanism indicates the accessibility status of the pre-authored content (if known); and

B.3.1.1 Checking Assistance (WCAG):

If the authoring tool provides authors with the ability to add or modify web content in such a way that a WCAG 2.0 success criterion can be violated, then accessibility checking for that success criterion is provided (e.g., an HTML authoring tool that inserts images should check for alternative text; a video authoring tool with the ability to edit text tracks should check for captions). (Level A to meet WCAG 2.0 Level A success criteria; Level AA to meet WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA success criteria; Level AAA to meet all WCAG 2.0 success criteria)

Note: Depending on the nature of the editing-view and the scope of the potential web content accessibility problem (WCAG), identification might involve highlighting elements or renderings of elements, displaying line numbers, or providing instructions.

Conformance Requirements

Success Criteria Satisfaction

The first step in determining ATAG 2.0 conformance is to assess whether the Success Criteria have been satisfied. The potential answers are:

Not Applicable: The ATAG 2.0 definition of authoring tool is inclusive and, as such, it covers software with a wide range of capabilities and contexts of operation. In order to take into account authoring tools with limited feature sets (e.g., a photo editor, a CSS editor, a status update field in a social networking application), many of the ATAG 2.0 success criteria are conditional, applying only to authoring tools with the given features(s). If a conformance claim is made, an explanation of why the success criterion is not applicable is required.

Yes: In the case of some success criteria, this will include a Level (A, AA, or AAA) with reference to WCAG 2.0. If a conformance claim is made, an explanation is optional, but strongly recommended.

No: If a conformance claim is made, an explanation is optional, but strongly recommended.

Relationship
to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0

At the time of publishing, WCAG 2.0 [WCAG20] is the current W3C Recommendation regarding web content accessibility. For this reason, ATAG 2.0 refers to WCAG 2.0 when setting requirements for (1) the accessibility of web-based authoring tool user interfaces (in Part A) and (2) how authors should be enabled, supported, and guided toward producing web content that is more accessible to end users with disabilities (in Part B).

In particular, ATAG 2.0 refers to WCAG 2.0 within its definition of the term "accessible content" (and related terms, such as "accessible template"). The definition of "accessible content" is content that would conform to WCAG 2.0, at either Level A, AA, or AAA, under the assumption that any web content technologies that are relied upon to satisfy the WCAG 2.0 success criteria are accessibility supported. The phrase "at either Level A, AA, or AAA" takes into account that the definition of "accessible content" can differ depending on the context of use (e.g. in a Level A success criterion of ATAG 2.0 versus in a Level AAA success criterion). The definition also includes two notes:

The first is "[i]f accessibility support for the relied upon technologies is lacking, then the content will not conform to WCAG 2.0 and one or more groups of end-users with disabilities will likely experience difficulty accessing the content."

The second is "[c]onformance to WCAG 2.0, even at the highest level (i.e., Level AAA), still may not make content 'accessible to individuals with all types, degrees, or combinations of disability'." In order to highlight success criteria or defined terms in ATAG 2.0 that depend on WCAG 2.0, they are marked with the parenthetical: "(WCAG)".

Note on "accessibility-supported ways of using technologies":

Part of conformance to WCAG 2.0 is the requirement that "only accessibility-supported ways of using technologies are relied upon to satisfy the WCAG 2.0 success criteria. Any information or functionality that is provided in a way that is not accessibility supported is also available in a way that is accessibility supported." In broad terms, WCAG 2.0 considers a web content technology to be "accessibility supported" when (1) the way that the web content technology is used is supported by users' assistive
technology and (2) the web content technology has accessibility-supported user
agents that are available to end users.

This concept is not easily extended to authoring tools because many authoring tools can be installed and used in a variety of environments with differing availabilities for assistive
technologies and user
agents (e.g., private intranets versus public websites, monolingual sites versus multilingual sites). Therefore:

ATAG 2.0 does not include the accessibility-supported requirement. As a result, ATAG 2.0 success criteria do not refer to WCAG 2.0 "conformance", but instead refer to "meeting WCAG 2.0 success criteria".

Once an authoring tool has been installed and put into use, it would be possible to assess the WCAG 2.0 conformance of the web content that the authoring tool produces, including whether the WCAG 2.0 accessibility-supported requirement is met. However, this WCAG 2.0 conformance assessment would be completely independent of the authoring tool's conformance with ATAG 2.0.

This conformance option may be selected when an authoring tool would require additional tools or componentsin order to conform as a complete authoring system. This option may be used for components with very limited functionality (e.g. a plug-in) up to nearly complete systems (e.g. a markup editor that only lacks accessibility checking functionality).

The level of conformance (A, AA, or AAA) is determined as above except that, for any "no" answers, the tool must not prevent the success criteria from being met by another authoring process component as part of a complete authoring system.

This conformance option may be selected when an authoring tool is unable to meet one or more success criteria because of intrinsic limitations of the platform (e.g., lacking a platform accessibility service). The (optional) explanation of conformance claim results should explain what platform features are missing.

Web Content Technologies Produced:

If an authoring tool is capable of producing multiple web content technologies, then the conformance may include only a subset of these technologies as long as the subset includes both any technologies that the developer sets for automatically-generated content or that the developer sets as the default for author-generated content. The subset may include "interim" formats that are not intended for publishing to end users, but this is not required.

Live publishing authoring tools:

ATAG 2.0 may be applied to authoring tools with workflows that involve live authoring of web content (e.g., some collaborative tools). Due to the challenges inherent in real-time publishing, conformance to Part B of ATAG 2.0 for these authoring tools may involve some combination of support before (e.g., support in preparing accessible slides), during (e.g., live captioning as WCAG 2.0 requires at Level AA) and after the live authoring session (e.g., the ability to add a transcript to the archive of a presentation that was initially published in real-time). For more information, see the Implementing ATAG 2.0 - Appendix E: Authoring Tools for Live Web Content.

Conformance
Claims (Optional)

Note: As with any software application, authoring tools can be collections of components. A conformance claim can only be made by a responsible entity. Any other attempted "claims" are, in fact, reviews.

Required Components of a Conformance Claim

Authoring tool information: The name of the authoring tool and sufficient additional information to specify the version (e.g., vendor name, version number (or version range), required patches or updates, human language of the user interface or documentation).

Note: If the authoring tool is a collection
of software components (e.g., a markup editor, an image editor,
and a validation tool), then information must be provided separately
for each component, although the conformance claim will treat them
as a whole.

A list of the web content technologies produced by the authoring tool that are included in the claim. If there are any web content technologiesproduced by the authoring tool that are not included in the conformance claim, these must be listed separately.

Appendix A: Glossary

This appendix contains definitions for all of the significant/important/unfamiliar terms used in the normative parts of this specification, including terms used in the Conformance section. Please consult http://www.w3.org/TR/qaframe-spec/ for more information on the role of definitions in specification quality.

Web content that is used in place of other content that some people are not able to access. Alternative content fulfills essentially the same function or purpose as the original content. WCAG 2.0 recognizes several general types of alternative content (for more information see WCAG 2.0):

text alternatives for non-text content: Text that is programmatically associated with non-text content or referred to from text that is programmatically associated with non-text content. For example, an image of a chart might have two text alternatives: a description in the paragraph after the chart and a short text alternative for the chart indicating in words that a description follows.

alternatives for time-based media: Web content that serves
the same function or purpose as one or more tracks in a time based media presentation. This includes: captions, audio descriptions, extended audio descriptions, sign language interpretation as well as correctly sequenced text descriptions of time-based visual and auditory information that also is capable of achieving the outcomes of any interactivity in the time-based presentation.

media alternative for text: Media that presents no more information than is already presented in text (directly or via text alternatives). A media alternative for text is provided for those who benefit from alternate representations of text. Media alternatives for text may be audio-only, video-only (including sign-language video), or audio-video.

Importantly, from the perspective of authoring tools, alternative content may or may not be:

programmatically associated: Alternative content whose location and purpose can be programmatically determined from the original content for which it is serving as an alternative. For example, a paragraph might serve as a text alternative for an image, but it is only programmatically associated if this relationship is properly encoded (e.g., by "aria-labeledby").

Software (or hardware), separate from the authoring tool, that provides functionality to meet the requirements of users with disabilities. Some authoring tools may also provide direct accessibility features.
Examples include:

screen magnifiers, and other visual reading assistants, which are used by people with visual, perceptual and physical print disabilities to change text font, size, spacing, color, synchronization with speech, etc. in order improve the visual readability of rendered text and images;

screen readers, which are used by people who are blind to read textual information through synthesized speech or Braille;

text-to-speech software, which is used by some people with cognitive, language, and learning disabilities to convert text into synthetic speech;

speech recognition software, which may be used by people who have some physical disabilities;

alternative keyboards, which are used by people with certain physical disabilities to simulate the keyboard (including alternate keyboards that use head pointers, single switches, sip/puff and other special input devices);

alternative pointing devices, which are used by people with certain physical disabilities to simulate mouse pointing and button activations.

reversible authoring action is an authoring action that can be immediately and completely undone by the authoring tool upon a cancel request by an author. Examples of cancel requests include: "cancel", "undo", "redo" (when it used to reverse "undo"), "revert", and "roll-back"Note: It is acceptable to collect a series of text entry actions (e.g., typed words, a series of backspaces) into a single reversible authoring action..

authoring outcome

The content or content modifications that result from authoring actions. Authoring outcomes are cumulative (e.g., text is entered, then styled, then made into a link, then given a title).

authoring practice

An approach that authors follow to achieve a given authoring outcome. (e.g., controlling presentation with style sheets). Depending on the design of an authoring tool, authoring practices may be chosen by the authors or by the authoring tool. Authoring practices may or may not be:

end of an authoring session: The point at which the author has no further opportunity to make changes without starting another session. The end of an authoring session may be determined by authors (e.g., closing a document, publishing) or by the authoring tool (e.g., when the authoring tool transfers editing permission to another author on a collaborative system). Note that the end of the authoring session is distinct from publishing. Automatic content generation may continue after the end of both the authoring session and initial publishing (e.g., content management system updates).

Any web-based or non-web-based application(s) that can be used by authors (alone or collaboratively) to create or modify web content for use by other people (other authors or end users). Note 1: "application(s)": ATAG 2.0 may be conformed to by stand-alone applications or by collections of applications. If a conformance claim is made, then the claim must provide identifying information for each application and also for any required extensions, plug-ins, etc.
Note 2: "alone or collaboratively": Multiple authors may contribute to the creation of web content and, depending on the authoring tool, each author may work with different views of the content and different author permissions.
Note 3: "to create or modify web content": This clause rules out software that collects data from a person for other purposes (e.g., online grocery order form) and then creates web content from that data (e.g., a web-based warehouse order) without informing the person (however, WCAG 2.0 would still apply). This clause also rules out software used to create content exclusively in non-web content technologies.
Note 4: "for use by other people": This clause rules out the many web applications that allow people to modify web content that only they themselves experience (e.g., web-based email display settings) or that only provide input to automated processes (e.g., library catalog search page).Examples of software that are generally considered authoring tools under ATAG 2.0:

Examples of software that are not considered authoring tools under ATAG 2.0 (in all cases, WCAG 2.0 still applies if the software is web-based):

customizable personal portals: ATAG 2.0 does not apply because the web content being edited is only available to the owner of the portal

e-commerce order forms: ATAG 2.0 does not apply because the purpose of an e-commerce order form is to order a product, not communicate with other people via web content, even if the data collected by the form actually does result in web content (e.g., online tracking pages)

stand-alone accessibility checkers: ATAG 2.0 does not apply because a stand-alone accessibility checker with no automated or semi-automated repair functionality does not actually modify web content. An accessibility checker with repair functionality or that is considered as part of a larger authoring process would be considered an authoring tool.

authoring
tool user interface

The display and control mechanism that authors use to operate the authoring tool software. User interfaces may be non-web-based or web-based or a combination (e.g., a non-web-based authoring tool might have web-based help pages):

authoring tool user interface (non-web-based): Any parts of an authoring tool user interface that are not implemented as web content and instead run directly on a platform that is not a user agent (e.g., Windows, Mac OS, Java Virtual Machine).

manual checking: Checking in which the tests are carried out by authors. This includes the case where authors are aided by instructions or guidance provided by the authoring tool, but where authors must carry out the actual test procedure.

semi-automated checking: Checking in which the tests are partially carried out by the authoring tool, but where authors' input or judgment is still required to decide or help decide the outcome of the tests.

automated checking: Checking in which the tests are carried out automatically by the authoring tool without any intervention by authors. An authoring tool may support any combination of checking types.

collection
of software components

Any software programs that are used either together (e.g., base tool
and plug-in) or separately (e.g., markup editor,
image editor, and validation tool), regardless of whether there has been
any formal collaboration between the developers of the software components.

content (web content)

Information and sensory experience to be communicated to the end user by means of a user
agent, including code or markup that defines the content's structure, presentation, and interactions. In ATAG 2.0, the term is primarily used to refer to the output that is produced by the authoring tool. Content produced by authoring tools may include web applications, including those that act as web-based authoring tools. Content may or may not be:

Note 1: If accessibility support for the relied upon technologies is lacking, then the content will not conform to WCAG 2.0 and one or more groups of end users with disabilities will likely experience difficulty accessing the content.

Note 2: Conformance to WCAG 2.0, even at the highest level (i.e., Level AAA), still may not make content "accessible to individuals with all types, degrees, or combinations of disability".

content being edited: The web content that an author can modify during an authoring session. The content being edited may be a complete piece of content (e.g., image, style sheet) or only part of a larger piece of content (e.g., a status update). The content being edited only includes content in web content technologies that the authoring tool supports (e.g., a WYSIWYG HTML editor allows editing of the HTML content of a web page editable, but not the images).

content properties

The individual pieces of information that make up the web content (e.g., the attributes and contents of elements, stylesheet information).

The act of specifying the actual web
content that will be rendered, played or executed by the end user'suser agent. While the precise details of how content is created in any given system may vary widely, responsibility for the generation of content can be any combination of the following:

author generated content:Web content for which authors are fully responsible. The author may only be responsible down to a particular level (e.g., when asked to type a text label, the author is responsible for the text, but not for how the label is marked up; when typing markup in a source editing-view, the author is not responsible for the fact that UNICODE is used to encode the text ).

automatically generated content: Web content for which developer-programmed functionality is fully responsible (e.g., what markup to output when an author requests to start a new document, automatically correcting markup errors).

third-party content generation: Web content for which a third-party author is responsible (e.g., community shared templates).

conventional renderings (or "WYSIWYG"): When content is rendered in a way that is similar to the default rendering a user agent would create from the same content. While "WYSIWYG", standing for "What-you-see-is-what-you-get" is the common term, differences between user agents and end user settings mean that in reality there is no single typical end user experience; or

unconventional renderings: When content is rendered differently than it would be in a typical user agent (e.g., rendering an audio file as a graphical wavefront); or

partial renderings: When some aspects of the content are rendered, played, or executed, but not others
(e.g., a frame-by-frame video editor renders the graphical, but not the timing aspects, of a video).

Processes that take content in one web content technology or
non-web content technology (e.g., a word processing format) as input and produce content that has been optimized, restructured or recoded:

Optimizing Content Transformations: Transformations in which the content technology is not changed and the structural features of the content technology that are employed also stay the same. Changes would not be expected to result in information loss (e.g., removing whitespace, replacing in-line styles with an external stylesheet).

Restructuring Content Transformations: Transformations in which the content technology stays the same, but the structural features of the technology used to markup the content are changed (e.g., linearizing tables, splitting a document into pages.

Recoding Content Transformations: Transformations in which the content technology used to encode the content is changed (e.g., HTML to XHTML, a word processing format to HTML).

Note: Clipboard operations, in which content is copied to or pasted from the platform clipboard, are not considered content transformations.

Features of an authoring tool that provide functionality to meet the requirements of authors with disabilities (e.g., keyboard navigation, zoom features, text-to-speech). Additional or specialized functionality may still be provided by external assistive technology.

visual display settings: the characteristics of
the on-screen rendering of text and graphics. Examples include fonts, sizes,
colors, spacing, positioning, and contrast.

tactile display settings: the characteristics of haptic output. Examples include the magnitude of the haptic forces and the types of vibration.

documentation

Any information that supports the use of an authoring tool. This information may be provided electronically or otherwise and includes help, manuals, installation instructions, sample work flows, tutorials, etc.

Language that is spoken, written or signed (through visual or tactile means) to communicate with humans.

informative

For information purposes and not required for conformance.

keyboard interface

Keyboard interfaces are programmatic services provided by many platforms that allow operation in a device independent manner. A keyboard interface can allow keystroke input even if particular devices do not contain a hardware keyboard (e.g., a touchscreen-controlled device can have a keyboard interface built into its operating system to support onscreen keyboards as well as external keyboards that may be connected). Note: Keyboard-operated mouse emulators, such as MouseKeys, do not qualify as operation through a keyboard interface because these emulators use pointing device interfaces, not keyboard interfaces.

Text or other component with a text alternative that is presented to users to identify a component. A label is presented to all users whereas the name may be hidden and only exposed by assistive technology. In many (but not all) cases the name and the label are the same.

live

Information captured from a real-world event that is published with no more than a broadcast delay.
Note: A broadcast delay is a short (usually automated) delay, for example used in order to give the broadcaster time to queue or censor the audio (or video) feed, but not sufficient to allow significant editing.

markup language

A system of text annotations (e.g., elements in HTML) and processing rules that may be used to specify the structure, presentation or semantics of content. Examples of markup languages include HTML and SVG.

markup of some content is the set of annotations that appear in the content.

Any content that is not a sequence of characters that can be programmatically determined or where the sequence is not expressing something in human language. This includes ASCII Art (which is a pattern of characters), emoticons, and images representing text.

normative

Required for conformance. One may conform in a variety of well-defined ways to ATAG 2.0. Content identified as "informative" or "non-normative" is never required for conformance.

A programmatic interface that is specifically engineered to provide communication between applications and assistive technologies (e.g., MSAA, IAccessible2 and UI Automation for Windows applications, AXAPI for Mac OS X applications, GNOME Accessibility Toolkit API for GNOME applications, Java Access for Java applications). On some platforms, it may be conventional to enhance communication further by implementing a document object.

Information that is encoded in a way that allows different software, including assistive technologies, to extract and present the information in different modalities. ATAG 2.0 uses this term in two contexts:

Processing content: Whether the authoring tool is able to extract information from the web content (e.g., to extract the language of content from the markup).

A heuristic measure of how likely users are to notice a user interface component in a user interface that
they are operating. Prominence is affected by numerous factors,
including: the number of navigation steps required, the reading order
position, visual properties (e.g., size, spacing, color), and even the
modality of use (e.g., mouse vs. keyboard use).

at least as
prominent: For ATAG 2.0, a user interface component A is considered to be "at least as prominent" as another component B when, from a default state, component A becomes displayed (and enabled) with the same number or less "opening" actions than are required for component B to become displayed (and enabled).Note 1: When a container is open, all of the enabled components in the container (e.g., items in a list, items in a menu, buttons in a toolbar, all components in a dialog box) are considered to be displayed (and therefore are at least as prominent as each other), even if the container must be scrolled for them to become visible. This takes into account that different screen sizes and author settings will affect which components are visible at a given time. Note 2: "Opening actions" are actions made by authors on components within the user interface that result in new components becoming displayed or enabled. For example: (a) keyboard shortcut to a top-level menu item to display a sub-menu, (b) keyboard selection on a button to display a dialog box, (c) mouse click on a checkbox to enable previously disabled sub-items, etc.. Actions that do not cause new components to become actionable (e.g., moving focus, scrolling a list), are not counted as "opening actions". Note 3: Keyboard shortcuts to components in closed containers are not counted as "opening actions" because the components have no prominence when they are not displayed. The same is true when authors must use "search" to reveal components in closed containers. Note 4: The "default state" is the state of the authoring tool at the beginning of an authoring session as set by the developer. The default state of many document authoring tools is an editing-view.

Any authoring tool initiated
request for a decision or piece of information from authors. The term covers requests that must be responded to immediately (e.g. modal dialog boxes) as well as less urgent requests (e.g. underlining a misspelled word).

More than one item within a multi-item set.Informative Note: ATAG 2.0 uses the term "range" in several success criteria in which absolute measurements may not be practical (e.g., the set of all help documentation examples, the set of all templates). While the strict testable requirement is the definition "More than one item within a multi-item set", implementers are strongly encouraged to implement the success criteria more broadly.

manual repair: Where the repairs are carried out by authors. This includes the case where authors are aided by instructions or guidance provided by the authoring tool, but where authors carry out the actual repair procedure;

semi-automated repair: Where the repairs are partially carried out by the authoring tool, but where authors' input or judgment is still required to complete the repair; and

automated repair: Where the repairs are carried out automatically by the authoring tool without any intervention by authors.

restrictions, restricted web content authoring

When the web content that authors can specify with an authoring tool either must include or must not include certain content (e.g., elements, attributes, widgets). Many authoring tools restrict authoring in some way, which can either benefit accessibility (e.g., if text alternatives for non-text content are required) or detract from accessibility (e.g., if attributes for defining text alternatives are not available). In contrast, authoring tools that allow unrestricted web content authoring do not require any particular content to be included or not included (e.g., many source editing-views).

role

Text or a number by which software can identify the function of a component within web content (e.g., a string that indicates whether an image functions as a hyperlink, command button, or check box).

sequential keyboard access

Using a keyboard interface to navigate the focus one-by-one through all of the items in an ordered set (e.g., menu items, form fields) until the desired item is reached and activated. This is in contrast to direct keyboard access methods such as keyboard shortcuts and the use of bypass links.

A mechanism for encoding instructions to be rendered, played or executed by user agents. Web content technologies may include markup languages, data formats, or programming languages that authors may use alone or in combination to create end user experiences that range from static web pages to multimedia presentations to dynamic web applications. Some common examples of web content technologies include HTML, CSS, SVG, PNG, PDF, Flash, Silverlight, Flex and JavaScript.

Content patterns that are filled in by authors or the authoring tool to produce content for end users (e.g., document templates, content management templates, presentation themes). Often templates will pre-specify at least some authoring decisions.

accessible templates (WCAG): Templates that can be filled in to create web content that meets the WCAG 2.0 success criteria (Level A, AA or AAA), when both of the following are true:

A user interface function that authors use to interact with the web content being edited. ATAG 2.0 categorizes views according to whether they support editing:

editing-views: View in which some or all of the content is editable; or

previews: Views in which no authoring actions are provided (i.e., the view is not editable). Typically, the purpose of previews is to present content as it would appear to end users of user
agents. In these cases, previews may be implemented using existing user agents or they may attempt to emulate some user agent functionality.

ATAG 2.0 also recognizes several approaches to presenting the content in a view:

source views: The content is presented in unrendered form (e.g., plain text editors); or

References to the latest version of "Authoring Tool Accessibility
Guidelines 2.0." Use the "latest version" URI to refer to
the most recently published document in the series: http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG20/.

In almost all cases, references (either by name or by link) should be to
a specific version of the document. W3C will make every effort to make this
document indefinitely available at its original address in its original form.
The top of this document includes the relevant catalog metadata for specific
references (including title, publication date, "this version" URI,
editors' names, and copyright information).

An XHTML 1.0 paragraph including a reference to this specific document
might be written:

For very general references to this document (where stability of content
and anchors is not required), it may be appropriate to refer to the latest
version of this document. Other sections of this document explain how to build a conformance
claim.

Appendix C: References

For the latest version of any W3C specification please consult the list of W3C Technical Reports at http://www.w3.org/TR/. Some documents listed below may have been superseded since the publication of this document.

This publication has been funded in part with Federal funds from the U.S. Department of Education, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) under contract number ED-OSE-10-C-0067. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Education, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.